This past Saturday I started the day off with a trip to the bookstore. Next I went sledding at the same place I went last week. Much of my old camp remained, though the new snow had made it a bit harder to see.
This time I actually sledded a bit more, but I also spent a lot of time building a nice little snow tunnel with a neighbor of ours. (His younger brother was there, too, but he was sledding most of the time.) The snow's deep enough that we could build a nice deep tunnel with a sturdy roof and not have to increase the natural depth of the snow at all. :-)
Last night we went to my uncle's school's production of Kiss Me, Kate, which was good. It had a couple of especially funny parts, such as a random wandering donkey and a nice little dead bird!
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
School & Snow
Despite rampant AIM-based speculation to the contrary, we did have school today. Oh well. Yesterday's snow day was very enjoyable -- my younger brother's friend came over and we played videogames (Halo 2 & Mercenaries) and went sledding.
Almost the entire time they were sledding, I was working on a little base camp at the top of the hill (so would it be a... umm... summit camp?). I flattened out a pretty big area -- plenty of room for the three enough, with plenty of room for a couple more. The flattening was crucial -- there was so much so it was next to impossible to walk otherwise. I then created custom-made spots for out tubes. I also defined the top of our run, complete with a queue area. I also made an elevated flattened area -- the "Snow City Cafe." There I had three little bowl-shaped indents in the snow for eating our M&Ms out of. :-)
Videogaming was also, of course, plenty of fun. I had one particularly great solo game (meaning my brother & his friend were doing something else) of Team Fiesta on Beaver Creek. I ended up winning the game for our team with 20 kills. At the end, I was doing really well with a rocket launcher -- I was so proud of myself. :-)
Almost the entire time they were sledding, I was working on a little base camp at the top of the hill (so would it be a... umm... summit camp?). I flattened out a pretty big area -- plenty of room for the three enough, with plenty of room for a couple more. The flattening was crucial -- there was so much so it was next to impossible to walk otherwise. I then created custom-made spots for out tubes. I also defined the top of our run, complete with a queue area. I also made an elevated flattened area -- the "Snow City Cafe." There I had three little bowl-shaped indents in the snow for eating our M&Ms out of. :-)
Videogaming was also, of course, plenty of fun. I had one particularly great solo game (meaning my brother & his friend were doing something else) of Team Fiesta on Beaver Creek. I ended up winning the game for our team with 20 kills. At the end, I was doing really well with a rocket launcher -- I was so proud of myself. :-)
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Super Bowl and Snow Day!!!
The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl!!! :-)
And -- it can't get much better than this -- we even have a snow day tomorrow because of all the... well... snow! I've had very few full weeks recently -- last week we had Monday off for MLK Jr. day and Tuesday off for Parent/Teacher Conferences! We have about two feet of snow here. It's amazing!
GO PATS!!!
And -- it can't get much better than this -- we even have a snow day tomorrow because of all the... well... snow! I've had very few full weeks recently -- last week we had Monday off for MLK Jr. day and Tuesday off for Parent/Teacher Conferences! We have about two feet of snow here. It's amazing!
GO PATS!!!
Mirrors and Mercs
Thursdays and Tuesdays at school for me are double-block days -- we have only two classes (not counting Art), but we have each for twice as long. That means 2-hour classes. Fortunately, we're given a ten or fifteen minute break in the middle of class so that we don't get quite so worn out.
This past Thursday I had Geometry for the last two hours of school. During our break, I suddenly realized something I had never known before: why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear. Coming back from the break, I burst back into class and said, "I know why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear!" The two other kids in the classroom at the time seemed a tad bit confused as to why I was randomly saying such a thing. I explained it to them, and then to a few other kids as they got back from break. I was exceptionally excited about my discovery, but no one else really cared that much. ;-)
Anyway, here's why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear.
.......................3 feet.............................
YOU -------------------- MIRROR
You're only three feet away from the mirror, but the light has to go there and back again.
YOU -------------------> MIRROR
..........<-------------------.................
Thus, those three feet are doubled! Get it? Pretty cool, huh? The effect is exaggerated in a car, since you're not looking at yourself -- you're looking at something else farther back.
..........................................YOU --------> MIRROR
OTHER CAR <------------------------ ................
Late last Tuesday night we got the LucasArts game Mercenaries, but I just had my first chance to play it today. (Willy's been playing it all week, and he's still only a little more than a quarter through the game.) It's awesome! I highly recommend it.
The game takes place in at least 2008. Australian forces uncovered a North Korean nuclear weapons cache, and the Allied Nations (basically a new UN) pours into Korea to take out this new threat. Your goal in the game is to capture or kill (capture is preferred) the "deck of 52" -- 52 North Korean leaders. There are also several side-quests -- races, challenges, et cetera.
So far, though, I haven't really played the main game -- the only card I've captured is the Two of Clubs (at least I think it's clubs). Instead, I've had fun hijacking vehicles, demolishing cities with devastating airstrikes, and sending cars skyrocketing into the air with huge amounts of C4. You can also call in supply drops, where helicopters come and drop off weapons, vehicles (including fuel trucks, tanks, sports cars, and helicopters), and more.
The helicopters have this really cool retractable magnet clamp thing -- you deploy it and then it hangs beneath you, and then you can latch on & pick up anything from supply crates to civilian cars to tanks and other helicopters. Just make sure you don't try to get anything that's too heavy, or it'll end up dragging you down!
Again, I highly, highly recommend this game. :-D
This past Thursday I had Geometry for the last two hours of school. During our break, I suddenly realized something I had never known before: why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear. Coming back from the break, I burst back into class and said, "I know why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear!" The two other kids in the classroom at the time seemed a tad bit confused as to why I was randomly saying such a thing. I explained it to them, and then to a few other kids as they got back from break. I was exceptionally excited about my discovery, but no one else really cared that much. ;-)
Anyway, here's why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear.
.......................3 feet.............................
YOU -------------------- MIRROR
You're only three feet away from the mirror, but the light has to go there and back again.
YOU -------------------> MIRROR
..........<-------------------.................
Thus, those three feet are doubled! Get it? Pretty cool, huh? The effect is exaggerated in a car, since you're not looking at yourself -- you're looking at something else farther back.
..........................................YOU --------> MIRROR
OTHER CAR <------------------------ ................
Late last Tuesday night we got the LucasArts game Mercenaries, but I just had my first chance to play it today. (Willy's been playing it all week, and he's still only a little more than a quarter through the game.) It's awesome! I highly recommend it.
The game takes place in at least 2008. Australian forces uncovered a North Korean nuclear weapons cache, and the Allied Nations (basically a new UN) pours into Korea to take out this new threat. Your goal in the game is to capture or kill (capture is preferred) the "deck of 52" -- 52 North Korean leaders. There are also several side-quests -- races, challenges, et cetera.
So far, though, I haven't really played the main game -- the only card I've captured is the Two of Clubs (at least I think it's clubs). Instead, I've had fun hijacking vehicles, demolishing cities with devastating airstrikes, and sending cars skyrocketing into the air with huge amounts of C4. You can also call in supply drops, where helicopters come and drop off weapons, vehicles (including fuel trucks, tanks, sports cars, and helicopters), and more.
The helicopters have this really cool retractable magnet clamp thing -- you deploy it and then it hangs beneath you, and then you can latch on & pick up anything from supply crates to civilian cars to tanks and other helicopters. Just make sure you don't try to get anything that's too heavy, or it'll end up dragging you down!
Again, I highly, highly recommend this game. :-D
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
10,000 Black Holes
10,000 or more black holes are now said to be orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*. Wow.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
SNOW DAY!!!
Wahoo - it's a snow day!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
Hmm, what to do... how about a mix of web site work, videogames (we got MechAssault 2 & it's great!), and homework? I'd say that's pretty likely.
Hmm, what to do... how about a mix of web site work, videogames (we got MechAssault 2 & it's great!), and homework? I'd say that's pretty likely.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Tophtucker.com v4.0 is ONLINE!!!
As of last night at about 11:45, the first parts of Tophtucker.com Version 4.0 are online. For information on some of the changes, click here. Since I'm not yet totally done with all the content, you may still stumble upon some old-style pages, broken links, and various other missing content. Over the next few weeks I'll be uploading the rest.
The updates to the TuckLyne section (including the Athena and TuckLyne Studios subsections), by the way, will be significantly farther off in the future, since that requires a whole new design. Note that TuckLyne itself will also be reorganization somewhat. There's a lot of stuff that's kind of hiding in the shadows, and that needs to be fixed. Just today I stumbled upon this section on the TuckLyne web site, which I don't remember AT ALL and which is thus completely out of date. I don't even know some of those people listed in the staff section! That's the stuff that needs to reorganized, merged into other divisions, or outright eliminated.
Well, it's dinner time for me, and then homework. Today was my first day of school after break... so sad... anyway, be sure to check out the new site! :-) Adios!
The updates to the TuckLyne section (including the Athena and TuckLyne Studios subsections), by the way, will be significantly farther off in the future, since that requires a whole new design. Note that TuckLyne itself will also be reorganization somewhat. There's a lot of stuff that's kind of hiding in the shadows, and that needs to be fixed. Just today I stumbled upon this section on the TuckLyne web site, which I don't remember AT ALL and which is thus completely out of date. I don't even know some of those people listed in the staff section! That's the stuff that needs to reorganized, merged into other divisions, or outright eliminated.
Well, it's dinner time for me, and then homework. Today was my first day of school after break... so sad... anyway, be sure to check out the new site! :-) Adios!
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Vacation is pretty much over.
Well, today is my last day of vacation, which is extremely sad. While I don't have a good enough memory to remember what I did every single day, like I did for Thanksgiving break, here's an overview of what I did with dates when possible.
Dec. 17 (Friday):
This was our last day of school... yay! After school we went to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was pretty good.
Dec. 19 (Sunday):
Some friends came over, including a rocket scientist who helped us recover some files from a dead computer. ;-) Then we played a lot of Halo 2 - a lot of Halo 2. A lotalotalot. By the end of the night we had gotten pretty good!
Week One in General:
This week I did a lot of web site editing, reading, and Halo 2. :-) My brother came home from California, which was very nice! We ended up playing Halo 2 with a lot of different friends that week... it's a great game!!!
Dec. 24 (Friday):
On the 24th we went to a friend's house for a Christmas Eve party and generally got even more excited for Christmas. :-)
Dec. 25 (Saturday):
CHRISTMAS!!! :-) On Christmas we opened presents, talked with a lot of people who came over, and then went out to my grandparent's house in Concord to have a little family party.
I also started watching these funny Star Wars cartoons I got, "Droids." They're not meant to be funny... but they are. ;-)
Dec. 26 (Sunday):
We went to a nice little baptism in the morning and then a party at the family's house later at night. My younger brother and I also played a lot of Dance Dance Revolution with our older brother... actually, I was playing "Rome: Total War" most of the time! :-)
Week Two in General:
This week there was a lot less web site work being done. ;-) How could I get such things done with all that Christmas excitement?!?
Dec. 27 (Monday):
My older brother's flight back to California was scheduled for the 27th at about 6:00 AM, meaning we weren't expecting to see him at all on Monday. Fortunately, the snow cancelled his flight, so he ended up going home Tuesday instead!
Dec. 28 (Tuesday):
Willy's friend came over and they went sledding while I took over the world in Rise of Nations, which I had started playing the previous day.
Willy's friend ended up sleeping over, and that night we randomly met his brother online in Xbox LIVE!!! The chances of that happening are absolutely miniscule, yet it happened.
We alternated playing Xbox LIVE and watching more of the hilarious Star Wars cartoons. We also started watching "Battle for Endor," the second in a series of two live-action Ewok movies... we started with the second by accident.
Dec. 29 (Wednesday):
Rosie turned ONE!!! We had a little birthday celebration, complete with a cake that she couldn't eat. Oh well... she got little doggie treats instead.
I continued watching "Battle for Endor" and also saw a big of the first movie, "Caravan of Courage."
Dec. 30 (Thursday):
I worked on an old "TuckLyne Studios" production, "Survivor or Not," and also worked on a Special Edition of an animated Star Wars movie I did in 7th Grade as a book report for the book "X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar."
Dec. 31 (Friday):
I continued work on Starfighters of Adumar. That night, we had a few friends over for a New Year's Eve gathering. We watched Napoleon Dynamite, which is an incredibly strange movie. A little more than halfway through, at about 11:50 PM, we switched to ABC or CBS (I forget which... all I remember is that Regis Philbin was the host) for their New Year's Eve coverage.
JANUARY 1, 2005!!! (Saturday):
Happy New Year! We watched a bit more of the New Year's coverage on TV, including some of the fireworks in Boston. Then we finished Napoleon Dynamite, said good-bye to our friends, and went to bed...
...and woke up the same day! That doesn't happen very often. I watched most of Star Wars: Episodes I and II in celebration of the fact that Episode III comes out this year!!!, and then went to The Polar Express at the Comcast IMAX Theater in Jordan's Furniture. Contrary to what nearly every critic thought, it was really good.
That night I finished my work on the Special Edition of Starfighters of Adumar.
Jan. 2 (Sunday):
Today! Well, today (so far) I've had breakfast and written this. Later today I'll work a tiny bit on my web site, UPLOAD IT ALL (despite the fact that it's practically guarenteed I won't be totally finished), and -- this is the worst part -- do my homework. I think it should be illegal to give kids homework over vacation. Fortunately, I don't have much.
Well, that's all. Farewell!
Dec. 17 (Friday):
This was our last day of school... yay! After school we went to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was pretty good.
Dec. 19 (Sunday):
Some friends came over, including a rocket scientist who helped us recover some files from a dead computer. ;-) Then we played a lot of Halo 2 - a lot of Halo 2. A lotalotalot. By the end of the night we had gotten pretty good!
Week One in General:
This week I did a lot of web site editing, reading, and Halo 2. :-) My brother came home from California, which was very nice! We ended up playing Halo 2 with a lot of different friends that week... it's a great game!!!
Dec. 24 (Friday):
On the 24th we went to a friend's house for a Christmas Eve party and generally got even more excited for Christmas. :-)
Dec. 25 (Saturday):
CHRISTMAS!!! :-) On Christmas we opened presents, talked with a lot of people who came over, and then went out to my grandparent's house in Concord to have a little family party.
I also started watching these funny Star Wars cartoons I got, "Droids." They're not meant to be funny... but they are. ;-)
Dec. 26 (Sunday):
We went to a nice little baptism in the morning and then a party at the family's house later at night. My younger brother and I also played a lot of Dance Dance Revolution with our older brother... actually, I was playing "Rome: Total War" most of the time! :-)
Week Two in General:
This week there was a lot less web site work being done. ;-) How could I get such things done with all that Christmas excitement?!?
Dec. 27 (Monday):
My older brother's flight back to California was scheduled for the 27th at about 6:00 AM, meaning we weren't expecting to see him at all on Monday. Fortunately, the snow cancelled his flight, so he ended up going home Tuesday instead!
Dec. 28 (Tuesday):
Willy's friend came over and they went sledding while I took over the world in Rise of Nations, which I had started playing the previous day.
Willy's friend ended up sleeping over, and that night we randomly met his brother online in Xbox LIVE!!! The chances of that happening are absolutely miniscule, yet it happened.
We alternated playing Xbox LIVE and watching more of the hilarious Star Wars cartoons. We also started watching "Battle for Endor," the second in a series of two live-action Ewok movies... we started with the second by accident.
Dec. 29 (Wednesday):
Rosie turned ONE!!! We had a little birthday celebration, complete with a cake that she couldn't eat. Oh well... she got little doggie treats instead.
I continued watching "Battle for Endor" and also saw a big of the first movie, "Caravan of Courage."
Dec. 30 (Thursday):
I worked on an old "TuckLyne Studios" production, "Survivor or Not," and also worked on a Special Edition of an animated Star Wars movie I did in 7th Grade as a book report for the book "X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar."
Dec. 31 (Friday):
I continued work on Starfighters of Adumar. That night, we had a few friends over for a New Year's Eve gathering. We watched Napoleon Dynamite, which is an incredibly strange movie. A little more than halfway through, at about 11:50 PM, we switched to ABC or CBS (I forget which... all I remember is that Regis Philbin was the host) for their New Year's Eve coverage.
JANUARY 1, 2005!!! (Saturday):
Happy New Year! We watched a bit more of the New Year's coverage on TV, including some of the fireworks in Boston. Then we finished Napoleon Dynamite, said good-bye to our friends, and went to bed...
...and woke up the same day! That doesn't happen very often. I watched most of Star Wars: Episodes I and II in celebration of the fact that Episode III comes out this year!!!, and then went to The Polar Express at the Comcast IMAX Theater in Jordan's Furniture. Contrary to what nearly every critic thought, it was really good.
That night I finished my work on the Special Edition of Starfighters of Adumar.
Jan. 2 (Sunday):
Today! Well, today (so far) I've had breakfast and written this. Later today I'll work a tiny bit on my web site, UPLOAD IT ALL (despite the fact that it's practically guarenteed I won't be totally finished), and -- this is the worst part -- do my homework. I think it should be illegal to give kids homework over vacation. Fortunately, I don't have much.
Well, that's all. Farewell!
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